Pyroelectric-Based Solar and Wind Energy Harvesting System

Inherent scarcity of thermal sources with a time varying temperature profile is the reason why the pyroelectric-based energy harvesting is not as prominent as its counterpart, thermoelectric generators, in the thermal energy harvesting domain. In this paper, a practical solution for generating thermal oscillations required for sustainable pyroelectric-based energy harvesting from the solar and wind energies, is presented. The main focus of the work is to modulate the concentrated solar radiation using a vertical axis wind turbine for producing higher rate of change of temperature on the pyroelectric material. The maximum energy and power density produced by the prototype device using PZT-5H as pyroelectric material are 6.927 mJ/cm3/cycle and 421.18 μW/cm3, respectively, and on average it can produce a power density of 304.78 μW/cm3, which concurs with the theoretical model.